


takes an ocean not to break

by talkingtothesky



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, First Kiss, M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2801924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Gene are students at Hogwarts, in their final year. Gene's struggling to come up with a happy memory robust enough to conjure the Patronus charm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	takes an ocean not to break

**Author's Note:**

> For fern_tree's birthday. See also little_cello's artwork [Expecto Patronum](http://lifein1973.livejournal.com/2651980.html).
> 
> Title from The National's _Terrible Love_.

Seventh year Defence Against the Dark Arts. Last thing on a Friday.   
  
Gene was not happy.  
  
Chris' little rabbit was pathetic, but at least it  _had_  a shape. Gene didn't even know what form his own Patronus would take.  
  
It was getting more and more humiliating. They'd been studying this particular charm for the past three weeks and Gene still hadn't produced more than a faint wisp. If he couldn't do it in a controlled classroom environment he hadn't a hope in the field. Patronuses were one of the main means of communication which Aurors used to report back. He'd never make it at this rate. Alright, so his tracking spells were pretty decent, and he could certainly hold his own in a duel, particularly disarming and disabling an opponent without permanently hurting them. But if he couldn't defend himself...  
  
Gene backed out of the way of a rampaging bear, only to bump into someone standing behind him, with messily-cut brown hair and black jeans on under his robes. Gene recognised him immediately. "Sam." He said cautiously, careful not to speak too loudly and attract attention. Theirs was an uneasy friendship from the start - it had made Gene very unpopular with the likes of Potter and Black, who were so busy bullying their own pet Slytherin they forgot (or had decided unilaterally to treat them all like crap regardless) that the entire house were not actually made up of unrepentant scumbags. Sure, there was the soon-to-be-Death-Eaters faction, but funnily enough none of  _them_  turned up to Defence lessons, while Sam Tyler was easily the best in the class.  
  
As though to prove Gene's point, a magnificent lion was roaring its way out of the end of Sam's wand. "Hey," Sam greeted, gazing at Gene. He wasn't even having to pay attention. He just flipping  _breathed_  complex spells. It was enough to set Gene's teeth on edge.  
  
He scowled as the lion strode into being, circled once around Sam and then butted its translucent head into Gene's hip. Gene flinched - it was vaguely _warm_ , like it was actually alive.   
  
"Sorry," Sam said, seeing that his playful shield made Gene uncomfortable. With a flick of his wand he sent the animal bounding the perimeter of the class. Somebody's penguin waddled by and then flopped on its belly to watch. "You can punch me in the face with yours, if you want." Sam offered, grinning disarmingly. Gene forgot how to be angry with him.  
  
"Would if I could." He sighed.  
  
Sam frowned. "How do you mean?"  
  
He shoved his hands in his pockets, one clenched tight around his wand. "It's a stupid spell, anyway. You see a Dementor, you just bloody leg it, no use standing around playing with it."  
  
"They can  _fly_ , Gene. And if you'd faced a real Dementor you'd know they sap all your energy to run."  
  
"...Have you?"  
  
"Have I what?"  
  
"Faced a real Dementor." Screw anyone who said Slytherins were all cowards, Gene thought. This guy certainly wasn't.  
  
Sam shrugged. "Where I come from...they're more common than owls."  
  
That made a lot of sense. Gene remembered Sam telling him about his parents - both Muggles, but his auntie Heather had magic. You-Know-Who had been targeting the Muggle communities for years, sending the Dementors in, invisible, to keep them docile and easy to oppress.  
  
Gene glanced at the lion again. "This isn't your first attempt, then."  
  
"Had to protect my mum." Sam said, simply.  
  
Gene stared at him. There was nothing he could say to that. They had more in common than they ever could have imagined when they met.  
  
"Guv!" Gene's concentration was broken by the shout of his nickname. Ray was in the habit of using it, even in class. Gene turned - there was a raccoon bounding towards him across the floor. Great, even Ray had managed to conjure one. Regardless of his renewed frustration, Gene raised a hand to wave at his friend across the classroom, gave him a thumbs up.   
  
Behind him, Sam stepped in closer. "Which part are you struggling with?"  
  
Gene huffed, refusing to look at him. "All of it."  
  
"What..." and then Sam paused, because this was a deeply personal question. "What do you think of?"  
  
"Scoring the winning goal in that Quidditch match last year."  
  
"Oh." Sam sounded disappointed. "Well... no wonder, then. It needs to be a stronger memory than that."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Much stronger. Pick another one, try again."  
  
Not for the first time, Gene wracked his brain. After a full minute of reflection, he gave up. "I can't think of anything."  
  
\---  
  
The next time he saw Sam was the following evening. Sam was leaving the Great Hall with Annie Cartwright. After Gene's embarrassing confession in class, they had promised to meet up tonight to work on Gene's Patronus together, but maybe Sam had made other arrangements. The curvaceous Ravenclaw had her hand on Sam's forearm. She was laughing, Sam was blushing. Gene growled low in his throat and looked down at his plate again. He wished he hadn't seen them - he had been enjoying his pumpkin pasty before.   
  
After dinner he went back to Gryffindor Tower and considered staying there for the rest of the night. But no, he needed to prove to himself he could do this, never mind Sam. The empty classroom Sam had suggested would still be as good a place to practice as anywhere else.   
  
By the looks of it, someone hadn't cleared away after a first year Charms class - there were cushions and feathers everywhere. Gene flumped down onto one of the larger cushions and stared at the wall. A portrait tutted at him for disrespecting the furniture; he showed it two fingers. Then he lapsed into thought.  
  
 _Why_  couldn't he come up with a happy memory strong enough to build a Patronus on? He hadn't lived such a miserable life, had he? A lot of people had it worse. There was a war going on, students here had lost whole families. What was wrong with him? He had friends. Not very close ones, admittedly - Ray and Chris looked up to him too much for him to lean on them.   
  
Both of them had managed to get to grips with this spell eventually. It might have taken them three lessons but they'd done it. Unlike Gene. Somewhat reluctantly, he got to his feet again, then held his wand out in front of him.  
  
He shut his eyes, and in his mind allowed himself to feel the weightlessness of flight, the wind whipping at his hair and robes, the speed and adrenaline of a match, focused and bruised and cold but alive. "Expecto Patronum." He uttered the incantation, pretty confidently. Then he cracked open one eye. Had it worked? Nope.   
  
On the wall, the painting sniggered at him. He glared and turned his wand on it. The old man staggered away, into another frame in a different part of the castle.  
  
Alright, so Quidditch wasn't strong enough. Sam had said as much. Did it have to be another person, not a thing? Gene immediately thought of his mum, and Stu. Family had to be better. They'd gone to a Muggle circus, just the three of them, about ten years ago now. It wasn't proper magic, but it was the closest his mum could get to the magical world without dad throwing a fit. The stunts, animals and fire play had filled Gene with a child's kind of wonder - not that he'd ever admitted it out loud. He concentrated on that day - his mother actually smiling for once, grinning up at the acrobats, Stu's excited wriggling - he kept poking impatiently at Gene's side, wanting to know  _if he'd seen that_ , and it had irritated him but he got it, too, that urge to call out to the top of the high tent, to connect over something other than fear. He muttered the spell, his wand tip flickered - a stream of white light emerged into the air. Thank god, it was working. He bit his lip, focused harder on the memory of his mum's grin, the bruise on her cheek distorted -  _no don't think about how she got that_  - him and Stu having a popcorn fight in the interval, some of it went over the railing into the ring, one of the elephants picked it up with its trunk later...he hit a wall. That was all he could remember. Furious, helpless, he watched as the light went out. Gene kicked at a nearby cushion, was about to Reducto it with all his might, when there was a voice behind him.  
  
"I see you've started without me."  
  
Gene whirled around. Anger and hope fought a fierce battle in his chest and finally conceded to bewilderment. "I thought you weren't coming."  
  
Sam glanced at Gene's outstretched wand. Gene lowered it. "I had a Potions essay to finish first. You know what Slughorn's like about punctuality."  
  
More confusion, plus oncoming dread. "What Potions essay?"  
  
"The one on possible recipes for antidotes to the Alihotsy draught?"  
  
Gene remembered. "Oh."  
  
Sam rolled his eyes. "It's due on Tuesday. If you want us to be Auror partners when we leave Hogwarts you've gotta get yourself together or you won't pass."  
  
"Yes, thank you, little Miss Obvious." He was veering rapidly into irritation. He felt lost, out of control. But Sam grinned in response to his automatic teasing, and that calmed him a bit.   
  
"Come on, then." Sam turned in the doorway and motioned for Gene to follow him.  
  
Gene looked pointedly around at the empty classroom. "Are we not going to practice?"  
  
"We are," Sam agreed, mysteriously. "But outside."  
  
\---  
  
The next thing Gene knew he was following Sam as he ran across sloping lawns in the dark - straight for the Forbidden Forest.  
  
"Tyler! Are you off your tits? There's all sorts in there!"  
  
Sam waggled his eyebrows. "Scared, Hunt?"  
  
\---  
  
Blankets, thermos flasks. A clearing in the trees, heavily fortified with enchantments, so many you could feel the air crackling with it. It warmed the air around them, so that he was no longer freezing cold in just his robes, out in the winter night air. Nothing and no-one would stumble across them here without them knowing about it. Gene was distracted from complaining that the picnic and all looked very much like a girly seduction scene, by the raw power of the magic he'd just stepped into. Sam was very talented, but there was no way he'd pulled this off alone.  
  
"How did you...?"  
  
"Gamekeeper. He owed me a favour."  
  
"What,  _Hagrid_  did this? Didn't even know he had a wand."  
  
"I helped him out when he had a bit of a mishap with a dangerous creature in my third year."  
  
"Looking the other way? Doesn't sound like you."  
  
"Oh, no, I shopped him." Sam said nonchalantly. "And then when he'd done his time he came straight back and carried on with the exact same thing. Only I made him some stronger baskets and boxes for his pets. I'm quite good at DIY stuff."  
  
Gene eyed the picnic basket on the ground with some trepidation. "So I see."  
  
\---  
  
"Look, Gene, look." Sam traced his wand, trailing soft blue light from its tip, over the constellations, some of which Gene knew already, others he didn't.  
  
"Don't see the point, really. There's bloody loads of stars, and bloody loads of humans, magic and not. So many of them, why does it matter which one's which?"  
  
Sam looked crestfallen, Gene felt guilty. "But...doesn't it make you feel  _part_  of something?" His face was very close now, the shadows highlighting his cheekbones.  
  
Gene inwardly conceded Sam had a point. But Gene had dropped himself into the role of miserable young git, he couldn't very well back out now. And it was what he honestly felt, sometimes. Sitting on the back step in the garden at two in the morning, listening to his dad inside the house yelling at his mum, was the last time he ever really looked at the stars. "Nope. Makes me feel alone."  
  
Sam kissed him, clumsy and fast. Gene barely had time to understand what was happening before Sam was on his feet and heading out, stumbling away until the crackle of the warding barrier stopped him in his tracks.  
  
"Oi. What was that in aid of?"   
  
Sam's shoulders were heaving. Loneliness was catching, apparently. "Happy memory?" There was a wobbly sort of laugh in his voice.  
  
Gene thought of Annie laughing as she left the Great Hall on Sam's arm, earlier. The surge of jealousy - okay, that was what he'd felt, admit it inside your own head at least, Hunt - that had put him off his food. And he  _really_  liked Hogwarts food. He really liked Sam, and his stupid Gryffindor-shaped Patronus even though he was meant to be in Slytherin. His cunning - setting all of this up, for a start. His ambition - rate he was going, he'd be Head Auror a year out of school.   
  
"Sam. It's alright." He forced himself to say. "Thank you."  
  
Sam sounded like he was going to choke. He was still facing outwards, nose inches from the invisible wards. " _'Thank_  you?'"  
  
"Well, yeah, it was a bit fast, but I liked it." Gene quipped, facetiously.   
  
Sam  _finally_  turned around. "You're not... going to punch me?"  
  
Gene shook his head. "There are worse things in the world than being called queer. Especially when it happens to be true."  
  
Sam's eyebrows went up and up and up. "And you don't find me...a total waste of space?"  
  
Gene barked out a laugh, causing Sam to grin and bite his lip, self-consciously. "No, Tyler. You're not a  _total_ waste of space."  
  
Sam nodded, hands in his pockets, every bit of him shaking with relief. "Well. Good. That's good."  
  
Gene got to his feet. "How's about we pack in this Astronomy nonsense and you let me beat your arse at Gobstones, instead? That'll give me a good memory, alright."  
  
Sam sighed. "That's not enough, Gene."  
  
"Who says? Your textbook? Nah, it'd be good enough for me. Besides, I'd be warm."  
  
"But the enchantments..."  
  
"Yeah, yeah I know. But genuinely warm, not artificially toasted."  
  
This seemed to trigger something in Sam. "It doesn't have to be a  _real_  memory. Just something that makes you feel warm enough, something to fight back the cold that the Dementors bring."  
  
Gene absorbed that information, thinking about warm things. "In that case...pub? The Three Broomsticks'll still be open, won't it? We can sneak into Hogsmeade and get ourselves a Firewhiskey."  
  
"Alright. You're on."  
  
\---  
  
It wasn't a 'real' memory that did it, in the end. He took the feeling of complete happiness that spending time with Sam offered him - combined it with how he wanted to remember his family, not the way they actually were, but the way they could have been, together and supportive and happy, even dad. And maybe, if he thought about it hard enough, he could create that for their future.  
  
His Patronus flickered and grew and coalesced itself into a snake.


End file.
